ONCE, a council of seven Dwarven sages met and sat for seven long days and swore seven long oaths that they would come out with wisdom for all Dwarves.
After much discussion, it was decided that they begin with the Three Rules All Dwarves Live By.
- “There are no three rules,” said Bobkin.
- “Yes there are!,” replied Gage heatedly. “Hard work! Crafting! Quality crafting, mind. None of that newfangled trash.”
- “I actually also agree that there are no three rules,” Sterling began, “But quality crafting is important and qualifies for another discussion.
- “The title is already inaccurate,” said Bobkinfrustratedly.
- “So what?” said Cole. “Are you afraid of looking stupid? We’ll all look stupid. We’ll share the blame. Like Dwarves. Hey, that’s a great Dwarven value and—”
- “…why are you all staring at me like that?”
- “I mean,” Rowen tried, speaking up slowly, “it’s not bad. It’s not awful. But not every burden is collective. I have a hammer anyone can touch and I have a hammer that only I touch and I don’t like others to touch it. Same with work. Some things we do together, some things, you can only really be a Dwarf if you do them alone.”
- “Oh, that’s good,” someone said.
- “Really good,” someone else said.
- “But obvious. And not all that helpful,” prompted Bobkin.
- “Right. Right. Right, said Rowan.”
- “We should rename this,” said Gage.
- “Nah,” said Bobkin. “We’ll give future generations the pleasure of figuring out what we did wrong. They can learn from our example.
- We never did.
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Art self-photographed by Stanislav Kozlovskiy.
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